Items Needed: At this time we are really in need of canned fruits and vegetables. You can deposit these items in our box at the main doors. We always accept all food donations.

Membership: Are you looking for a way to help your fellow man? Do you have time to volunteer? If so, please consider joining St. Vincent de Paul at St. Cecilia’s. We have many different opportunities throughout the year for you to help. For more information please contact the parish office at 403-252-2790 and leave a message on the St. Vincent DePaul line. We will call you back.

Sunday, June 25 10am – 2 pm

It’s Spring Cleaning time!

Please bring your donated items to the Hall on Friday, June 22 between 10:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. No clothing or large appliances, please!

Proceeds to the Parish Fire Alarm System and to the Homeless.

Contacts:

Kevin Lopresti 403-470-8826
Frank Gerritsen 403-253-3952
Henry Feddema 403-271-6104

Dear Friends:

A complete circle of love is found in today’s gospel reading. God loved the Son, Jesus. The Son loves his followers, and the followers show their love for God through their love for one another. It is clear in this reading that while we are part of this circle, we are only part of it because God chose us to be. Our response to God’s choice for us is simply to show our love for God through the love we show to other human beings.

The lives of parents are very full and busy. It’s like juggling apples and catching each falling one to prevent it from splatting to the floor while tossing the others high in the air. But sometimes we need to think beyond the immediate demands of jobs, family and home. When we widen the circle of those who we include in our love, our children see first hand how we live this gospel message.

When we reach out to others, especially those who are difficult to love, they learn by our example what Jesus asks us to do in showing our love to one another just as he shows his love to us.

Jesus asks us to love one another as he has loved us. It’s easy to love those who love us, but what about the hard part of this command? How do we show love to the person that does not show us love? Think about who those people are in your lives.

Today we honour our Mothers !
When God created Mothers, he created the most loving, unselfish human being. Mothers of every species, every nationality world-wide, all seem to be blessed with the same nurturing instincts. Just look at the term, “mother bear”; what mother does not naturally protect her young? There is no greater love stronger than a parent’s love for their children.

So let us give thanks to Our Lord Jesus for giving us the love of His Mother, our own mothers here on earth, and if we are mothers, the blessing of the children we have nurtured. I wish you all a joyful and blessed Mother’s Day.

(From a parishioner, a mother)

“On this day O beautiful Mother,
On this day we give you our love”

Dear Friends

Some years ago, Mother Teresa was asked by a reporter , “What is your biggest problem?” Without a moment of hesitation, Mother Teresa answered with one word: “Professionalism.” She said: “Here are these servants of Jesus who care for the poorest of the poor. I have one who just went off and came back with her medical degree. Others have come back with registered nurse degrees. Another with a master’s in social work… and when they came back with their degrees… their first question always is, ‘Where is my office?’ Then she said, ‘You know what I do? I send them over to the House of the Dying where they simply hold the hands of dying people for six months and after that, they’re ready to be servants again.’ This was the greatness of Mother Teresa her unflinching commitment to stay connected to Christ’s Servant Mentality.

Mother Teresa of Kolkata would never miss her daily Eucharist. After long hours of hard work, she was far from exhausted. She radiated light and joy through her smile. Where did her energy come from? She said; “We cannot separate our lives from the Eucharist; the moment we do, something breaks. People ask, ‘Where do the sisters get the joy and energy to do what they are doing?’ The Eucharist involves more than just receiving; it also involves satisfying the hunger of Christ. He says: “Come to Me.” He is hungry for souls.”

These examples answer to some extent our question, why should we go to church? The power of the sacrament to sanctify and the mystery of the Church to unite are enormous. The age-old saying: united we stand, divided we fall, is very true. As the branches cannot have life cut off from the vine, so also we Christians will not have life separated from the Church and her Sacraments. The Church is not to be identified with a huge structure or a mansion built for worship. It is only a space to come together. The Church is the faithful united in faith and love. Growth of the Church is not in the number of buildings we erect with a huge cross or crucifix but it is in the firmer foundations we build in the faith of Jesus and in the love of our fellow beings. Our faith is expressed through our words and actions. We can express our love for the people only if we can be present to them. As St John puts it: “His commandment is that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and that we love one another as he commanded us.”(1 John 3:23). If the presence and the profession of faith are the starting point for our dynamic faith, how much do we require our Church If we have to grow in our Christian faith and charity we will have to begin with the Church and be closely associated with it. As St Paul going to meet his fellow apostles in Jerusalem to begin his Christian witness, becomes a superstar in the expansion of the mission, let us pray that the Lord may empower us through the Eucharist to be powerful witnesses of his love and Kingdom.

The Fourth Sunday of Easter is called the Good Shepherd Sunday, it is also the World Day of Prayer for Vocations to the Priesthood and Religious Life. Today we pray with the whole Church for priests and Religious. The present day situation with parishes being closed or twinned with others because of the shortage of priests is certainly an alarming and disconcerting factor in our parish life.

Although lay people are engaged in pastoral work and Church administration which helps tremendously, still the fact remains there are not enough priests, and the number of those who are still able to work is becoming smaller. What can we do?

1. Prayer. Our daily prayers should contain a prayer for vocations. Once a year on this day is not enough. We have to plead to God with our prayer
2. Create a Family climate in which vocations can grow. Vatican II Says: “The whole Christian community shares the responsibility for fostering vocations. The first step is to live in a full Christian manner. Families with a lively spirit of faith, love and reverence contribute greatly to this work,” St. Vincent Pallotti proclaims, “God gave me holy parents.” We thank God for Lucas Drapal of our parish who will be ordained on June 22nd at St. Mary’s cathedral. We encourage you to attend his First Mass in our parish on June 24 at 11:00 am
3. Contribute in any way possible to the support of vocations. The success of a Sports team depends greatly on scouts to spot players which are good prospects for development. We invite all of you to become Scouts for Vocations. We need your help. If we want priests in the future they cannot be imported they have to be home grown.

We are celebrating the Eighth day of Easter, the conclusion of the Great Easter Octave. New members have been welcomed into our church by Baptism, Confirmation and Eucharist. We have renewed our Baptismal Promises. Through Lent and the celebration of Easter our “spiritual batteries” have been recharged, hopefully. Signs of new life! Thank you to all who helped prepare for this and made these days meaningful and our celebrations more beautiful.

We need this time of renewal in order to remain faithful to Christ. We must gain new strength from the celebration of the Sacraments of the Church in order to be genuine witnesses to the presence of the Risen Lord. We are challenged by the Word of the Sacred Scriptures to come to a deeper understanding of the Mysteries of our Faith so that together with the apostle Thomas we will cry out “My Lord and My God!”
May we take the words of today’s Entrance Antiphon to heart which reminds us exactly of that necessity”

“Like newborn infants,
you must long for the pure, spiritual milk,
That in him you may grow to salvation, alleluia!

The Church celebrates today as both Palm Sunday and Passion Sunday.  It is on Palm Sunday that we enter Holy Week, and welcome Jesus into our lives, asking him to allow us a share in his suffering, death and resurrection. This is also the time we remember and relive the events which brought about our redemption and salvation.  That is why the Holy Week liturgy presents us with the actual events of the dying and rising of Jesus.

The liturgy also enables us to experience in our lives, here and now, what Jesus went through then.  In other words, we commemorate and relive during this week our own dying and rising in Jesus, which result in our healing, reconciliation, and redemption. No wonder Greek Orthodox Christians greet each other with the words, “Kali Anastasi” (Good Resurrection), not on Easter Sunday but on Good Friday. They anticipate the resurrection.  Just as Jesus did, we, too, must lay down our lives freely by actively participating in the Holy Week Liturgies.

In doing so, we are allowing Jesus to forgive us our sins, to heal the wounds in us caused by our sins and the sins of others and to transform us more completely into the image and likeness of God.  Thus, we shall be able to live more fully the divine life we received at Baptism. Proper participation in the Holy Week liturgy will also deepen our relationship with God, increase our faith and strengthen our lives as disciples of Jesus.

But let us remember that Holy Week can become “holy” for us only if we actively and consciously take part in the liturgies of this week. This is also the week when we should lighten the burden of Christ’s passion as daily experienced by the hungry, the poor, the sick, the homeless, the lonely and the outcast through our corporal and spiritual works of mercy.

The Passion Sunday liturgy combines contrasting moments,
one of glory, the other of suffering:
the welcome of Jesus into Jerusalem
and the drama of his unjust trial and suffering,
culminating in his crucifixion and death.

Lent’s fifth Sunday’s readings present us with a challenge. Just as Jesus became the “Promised Messiah of Glory” and the “Conquering Son of Man” by offering his life for others, we too can only possess heaven by dying to self and spending our lives in self-giving, sacrificial service.  Today’s readings focus on the upcoming death of Jesus, which is interpreted not only as a priestly sacrifice (Heb 5), but also as the moment of his “exaltation” and glorification” (Jn 12).

The first reading, taken from the book of the prophet Jeremiah, explains how God will replace the Old Covenant of Judgment with a New Covenant of Forgiveness of Sins.
This new, or renewed, covenant prophesied by Jeremiah has been fulfilled, at least in part, through Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

In the second reading, St. Paul tells the Hebrews that it is by His suffering and death, in obedience to His Father’s will, that Jesus established the New Covenant.  Quoting the full text of Jeremiah 31:31-34, St. Paul explains that the new and better covenant was inaugurated through the high priest Jesus’ offering of himself as the one perfect sacrifice for sins.  We cannot appreciate adequately the “blood of the new and everlasting covenant” that we share in the Eucharist without recognizing the joys and sufferings, triumphs and setbacks that marked the history of God’s covenant relationship with his people.  Using metaphors of the “sown wheat grain” and the “spent life” in today’s gospel, Jesus teaches the same lesson. The gospel hints at Jesus’ inner struggle in accepting the cup of suffering to inaugurate the new and everlasting covenant.  However, Jesus accepts the cross as his “hour,” meaning the stepping stone to his passion, death, resurrection and exaltation.  Further, he considers his “hour” as the way of glorifying his heavenly Father and of being glorified by his Father.  It is also the way by which he draws all people into the saving action of God.  In addition, the “lifting up” of Jesus is the assurance of our own exaltation and glorification, provided we accept our crosses.

The Fourth Sunday of Lent is called Lætare (Rejoice) Sunday, from the first words of the liturgy [Introit]. Since it occurs in the middle of Lent, as Gaudete Sunday is celebrated midway through Advent, Lætare Sunday reminds us of the Event we look forward to at the end of the penitential season. As on Gaudete Sunday, rose-colored vestments may replace violet, with flowers on the altar symbolizing the Church’s joy in anticipation of the Resurrection, which cannot be contained even in Lent, though we still refrain from Alleluias and the singing of the Gloria until the magnificence of the Easter Vigil.

The central theme of today’s readings is that our salvation is the free gift of a merciful God given to us through Jesus His, Son. The readings stress God’s mercy and compassion, the great love, kindness and grace extended to us in Christ. As an act of love and gratitude to God who is “rich in mercy” and as an expression of our faith, we are invited to share his sufferings by doing penance during Lent so that we may inherit our eternal salvation and the glory of his resurrection in heaven. As we continue our Lenten observance in the fourth week, the Sacred Liturgy invites us to enter more deeply into the mystery of God’s grace, mercy and salvation. In the first reading, from the Second Book of Chronicles, we learn the compassion and patience of God. God allowed Cyrus the Great, a pagan conqueror, to become the instrument of His mercy and salvation for His chosen people who were in exile in Babylon. In the second reading, Paul tells us that God is so rich in mercy that He has granted us eternal salvation and eternal life as a free gift through Christ Jesus. Today’s gospel has a parallel theme but on a much higher level. Jesus, the Son of God, became the agent of God’s salvation, not just for one sinful nation but for the sinfulness of the whole world. Through John 3:16, the gospel teaches us that God expressed His love, mercy and compassion for us by giving His only Son for our salvation.

Everything that Jesus said and did revealed both the character of his heavenly Father and the desires of his Father’s heart: ‘He who has seen me has seen the Father’. By clearing out the traders and money-changers from the temple, Jesus revealed the desire of his Father to receive his people’s undivided love. God wants the worship of every human being, each one created in his own image, and he seeks the love of all whom he has delivered out of slavery to sin and death.

Jesus was distressed when he saw that the hearts of the traders in the temple courts were ensnared by greed and that they had no zeal or love for God. His own heart was on fire with love for his Father. He passionately wanted the temple to be a place where God would be loved above all things. So, moving in and through the power of the Spirit, Jesus drove out the traders and the money-changers. This action both expressed his own love for his Father and fulfilled a previous prophecy: For zeal for thy house has consumed me’ .

By purifying the temple in Jerusalem, Jesus gave a sign that God would raise up a new temple, cleansed of all corruption. The body of Jesus, raised from the dead, would be this new temple: ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up’.

Baptized into the risen Christ, we too have become God’s temple, living stones being built into a spiritual house. Enabled by the Spirit’s power, we can love the Lord with a zealous and undivided heart. Yet so often our hearts become caught up in other things, loving them more than we love God. As human beings our greatest glory is that we, of all God’s creation, can worship the Lord. We alone, the beloved sons and daughters of God the Father, can love our Father — he made us to do so. God loves us — and we can love him in return!